Time and time's influences are all with us; we could almost afford to sit still and let these influences work.

Even in the seceded States your word now would go further than a President's proclamation, or an act of Congress.
For God's sake and for your country's sake, come out of Washington! I foretold to General Halleck, before he left Corinth, the inevitable result to him, and I now exhort you to come out West.
Here lies the seat of the coming empire; and from the West, when our task is done, we will make short work of Charleston and Richmond, and the impoverished coast of the Atlantic.

Your sincere friend, W.T.SHERMAN We reached Memphis on the 13th, where I remained some days, but on the 14th of March received from General Grant a dispatch to hurry to Nashville in person by the 17th, if possible.

Disposing of all matters then pending, I took a steamboat to Cairo, the cars thence to Louisville and Nashville, reaching that place on the 17th of March, 1864.
I found General Grant there.

He had been to Washington and back, and was ordered to return East to command all the armies of the United States, and personally the Army of the Potomac.